Hey everyone! This was my first time back to playing SPL for a few years and I really enjoyed building new teams for the most of it. That being said, playing for nine weeks had me a bit burned out by the end, and as much as I wanted to go to poffs, I didn't feel like I had it in me to build new things in the current meta (which I think is ok but don't love). I was also itching to share all the teams I had built! I probably won't be playing in too many tours moving forward, so I'll go a little extra for this post and also give a breakdown of all the games I played. Gonna go in reverse chronological order, but start with the teams that are seeing some popularity with the playerbase. I also decided to take finch's approach and split this into two posts, as I had all of this written last weekend (all of these teams are legal in the current meta!) but lost steam to cover the rest, and I didn't want to leave this sitting in my editor for too long! Take it in chunks or jump around to the teams you're interested in if it's too much to read at once, though I do hope you eventually read all of it. Enjoy!
Before I get into the teams, I want to talk about my favorite mon in the meta since week 1: Garchomp.
Garchomp @ Leftovers
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Scale Shot
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang
- Swords Dance
I think I used this set almost every week I played garchomp (bar one), and I played it almost every week as well. As much as I felt Magearna was broken, or cinderace worth suspect testing, I've always held chomper as the #1 pokemon in the metagame, because of this set. SD + Scale shot is arguably stronger than DD, as it gives Chomp immense breaking power, and the functionality to sweep without giving the opponent any free turns to attack. Leftovers is key to this set in my opinion, as it severely limits the use of passive damage to chip into Chomp's impressive natural bulk, which is actually one of its strongest points as a sweeper imo. For example, Garchomp can easily tank even LO moonblast from Clefable and slice through like knife through butter. Fire fang is my favorite coverage move because of its ability to hit corviknight and ohko ferrothorn, apart from denting grasses like rilla and kart harder, and hitting weakened fliers for more accuracy without dropping defenses. I've tried messing with a few other things, and in the spectrier meta I thought LO Edge was fair to ohko mandibuzz, but my personal take was to use rock slide with an EV spread that would avoid an ohko from FP (was roughly 48 HP / 204 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe). This allowed me a better neutral hit vs all fliers, the ability to still break corv/skarm esp. if paralyzed, and the ability to break mandy without sacrificing lefties for every other mu. LO Chomp is definitely very strong and improves a few other mus like clef, but I find lefties more consistent overall and far more splashable. I always pair chomp with a way to weaken things like lando-t, as that is the most frequent natural soft-check. As you'll see, chomp was the gamewinner in a few of my matches, and was a potent wincon in pretty much every other game as well.
Week 7: Clef Sand vs Talah
(importable) (replay)
Oh boy. This team has been seeing a ton of usage, and is definitely one of my favorites. I actually first built this team sometime around week 4, and was what I was considering using vs Eo. I realized that CM LO Clef was being heavily disrespected by a lot of players, even from me despite my love for it in OST last year. I ended up shelving this team that week for rain, the next team I will be talking about, and brought it back out again after the gear/cinderace ban. I was having an incredibly hard time building any good balance teams / avoiding formulaic bulky offs due to the immense pressure from pokemon like Kyurem, Specs Pult, Lele, and Spikes (Ferrothorn). As an aside, these are all Pokemon that I feel are incredibly strong and restricting in the current metagame, and the best counterplay is very limited, stifling flexibility with teams. One of the reasons I brought this team is that it has one of the best answers to several of these guys in Tyranitar. TTar is incredibly tanky and one of the most proactive kyurem answers, and is effective vs pult with the supporting cast. Lefties is key as without Rest, TTar has no recovery. The spread outruns hydreigon after para (Twave is also key for crippling pokemon like corv, cm clef, and reuni), and EQ lets u comfortably switch into tran and also 1v1 non-superpower Nidoking.
The main limitation with TTar is due to the passive damage it sets with sand, the ideal partners for it are rather limited. So even though TTar is incredibly good, there is not as much room to splash it across teams or get creative with it. While this is a limitation I find rather dissapointing for the whole meta, it was certainly a massive plus with mguard clef and how I started off when building this team. Drill was a natural choice, I ran some sdef for CM Clef and Toxic to cripple things like Lando for Garchomp / outstalling with Skarm. From here I decided to go for SkarmPex due to how effectively it covers so many threats to sand while not being bothered/affected by the chip damage. IDef Skarm is a key response to things like SD Lando, Chomp, Kartana, Rillaboom, Scizor, and Weavile. It also keeps up layer of spikes up vs non-idef corv, and can be a key wincon if the right opposing mon gets taken out. Helmet and Spikes pressure really add to the passive damage component that is central to bulky sand teams. At the time of building this team, full SDef Pex was key to have a reliable answer to Magearna (and even specs was capable of clobbering this lineup with the right predictions). Post-ban I was able to make it more mixed defensive, which makes it the best lead vs Lando-T as knocking him off is a top-priority that gives you significantly more room to punish your opponents plays later game. It also gave me room to drop haze, as Tyranitar + Chomp covers Volcarona and IDef Skarm covers all major physical set-up. I decided to go for Poison Jab for my match with Talah, as this gives reliable counterplay vs CM Taunt Fini, and can still fish for poisons vs a lot of pokemon. The fini mu is still playable without PJab due to knock + sand, but it still often requires getting many predictions right, and keeping both Drill + Chomp so that you can sack drill to RKO with chomp. I didn't want to go into any auto-negative mus, so PJab was the safest choice for me. Toxic and TSpikes have immense upside and should definitely be considered, especially as tox helps with fliers like NP Torn and Zap, and TSpikes is great for things like Rillaboom offense and rain. Bunker is another option that helps with offense and also Specs lele. Overall, the last moveslot on Pex is rather free for experimentation, though I think haze is very unecessary and a wasted opportunity. T-Spikes probably leads to the most straightforward wins when the MU is good and what I often play on ladder.
My major wincons of the team are my last slot, Chomp, and Clefable. I went with my normal Chomp set, as I feel fire fang coverage is too important to drop for substitute, which as an aside I often feel is played as a crutch and can cut into Chomp's amazing bulk. I also am not a fan of sand veil chomp, especially without smooth rock tar which would be a poor choice here, and chose to stick with rough skin for the chip damage. Pressure from Drill, Pex, and spikes, and twave is often enough to set-up Chomp to be a good wincon. However, it is very important to balance this with what you can sacrifice. Crippling a lefties lando-t early in the match can put you massively ahead, and I often play pex aggressively for this reason and have EV'd it for such scenarios. PDef Clef is great to buffer hits and still be a dangerous threat, and I've gone for enough speed for max mel (and then some for 0 corv) here, since Ajna's team has picked up some popularity. Thunder vs Flame is largely preference and the mu you might face, and I would recommend switching it up to keep your opponents guessing. Also, as I noted in the importable, you can definitely choose to run some speed creep on skarm. However, I would definitely not go crazy with this, as skarm needs a lot of its bulk in order to reliably counter dangerous threats like SD Chomp and Kartana. Jolly Skarm in particular is a rather terrible choice, as many magnezones will simply live a +2 Body Press anyway, and you won't be able to wall the most dangerous physical breakers like you need to. I think its better to simply accept that a fast specs zone might be somewhat difficult to face, but it can definitely be outplayed, especially if pex is played well.
Onto a review of the game, Talah brought an interesting Clef rain team. On preview my mu looked good, but I realized it would not be as positive as it seems due to Zapdos, the demon that it is. I have strong counterplay vs everything else on Talah's team (though I am still cautious of garchomp in rain), but with Zap I can't damage it with passive chip too effectively, and if we trade spikes (which is what I often must do with this team), my answers will get worn down very quickly. With this I realize it is important to weaken/cripple ferrothorn soon and try to maintain the weather/hazard war. I thought on preview that my Clefable + Chomp might be able to sweep outright, and I knew I could bluff flamethrower to scare out ferro. But Talah quickly revealed unaware clef, which meant I had to focus on the passive damage gameplan. I played very safely in this game because I knew I had MU advantage and most plays talah could make would still concede things from his side.
On Turn 18, I scald into a garchomp switch, and I notice it does not have lefties. I feel like lum is unlikely despite his brave switch, so at this point I am almost certain it is LO Aqua Tail. On this turn a double to Zapdos is very telegraphed, but it is extremely risky for me to stay in. I decide to make a midground to clefable, knowing that I can recover positionally from a LO Eq, and that if Talah stays in to SD, I can hard skarmory on EQ and win 1v1. When I catch the Zapdos, this is key for a few reasons. One is that I avoid taking rocks on my skarm, which would put me in range of a +2 LO Atail in rain if I take rocks again. The other is that I can now trade damage on Clef for a free switch on roost, which I manage to get through a hurricane confusion. I think this next turn, turn 20, is where I make perhaps my only objective misplay of the game, by switching to Tyranitar instead of Excadrill. In this moment I forgot that without rain drill walls zap, and this would give me a free opportunity to Spin and then Toxic the Pelipper, without taking hazards on my TTar. I already have rocks up so Tar doesn't accomplish much, even though chipping / crippling ferrothorn is nice for a later spin. Continuing on, I manage to 5-hit a scale onto zapdos, which puts it in range of rocks (and I've knocked it off with pex), so I decide to trade my skarm for rocks. I also reveal IDef here, allowing me to KO Peli and remove Talah's hazard control. I decide to save Skarm from TWave as the clef is unaware, but turn 44 should have set off some alarm bells. Talah sacks ferrothorn instead of Zapdos which would have denied my spin, and I thought this was just a misplay, but really it is an indication that Talah's Clef has healing wish.
When the Zap comes back, I am put in another difficult position and this is the next key moment of the game. I have enough tools to beat zapdos, but I must balance this with the fact that Talah's chomp might be able to clean me. I think there is an extremely low chance that Talah uses thunder since rain is about to run out, and there is a decent chance I decide to sack Pex or Roost on a weather ball. I decide to make a gutsy call here and set up one more spike on a roost, which KOs Skewda and spares me the situation of a toxic miss on a sack, sacking chomp for rough skin, or taking a liquidation drop on skarm. The downside of this move, despite the risk of needing to win a tie vs Chomp if I get this turn wrong, is also that Talah gains the ability to sack skewda to deny a scale shot or rapid spin. The main scenario I was scared of is if Talah switches zap out of toxic from drill after KOing pex, then going to garchomp and doubling back to zapdos on my skarmory. The extra spike here also barely puts chomp onto 1 LO turn instead of two in this scenario, which massively improves my winning chances. I'm not sure what the best decision is here and it was really tough for me, I'd love to hear what other people think. The spike ends up working, and I sack pex to bring drill. At this point I realize the Zapdos is modest (
), which is both good and bad. Hurricane has a chance to 2hko my drill if it hits both, but at least I can't get insta-confused into a self-hit. I land the tox and decide to pivot with my skarm back to drill. My goal was to minimize the risk of a 2hit scale into wide lens zap ending the game, and I felt like even if Talah read me here and hit the third cane, I was probably safe to win the game between skarm and chomp. With that, zap is basically out and Skarmory can clean up, though Chomp does it instead. A very close game and well played by Talah, showing once again just how good Zapdos is. If I had toxic spikes on Pex this mu is much closer to unloseable, so that's definitely a consideration if you want to try this team out. Fun fact, this game continued my 100% winstreak against rain in team tours, but is the only time I didn't bring HO into rain. Go figure!
Week 5: Rain vs Eo
(importable) (replay)
Rain time! It seems I was having a weather fever in the middle of SPL, and this team is another one that has been picking up a lot of popularity. Like I mentioned, I was originally planning to use sand vs Eo, but during the actual week leading up to our match I had been playing much more with this team. Eeveeto was actually building a rain team this week as well, and I thought I wanted to try my hand at it as well. We ended up dominating that week and actually brought (and won with) rain in several other slots, so when Pietro subbed in for me bringing rain again was the perfect choice.
The origins of this team actually come from me wanting the most brainless team to ladder with. A lot of HOs and Bulky Offs are rather far from that, but one mon I always thought was extremely powerful (and what makes rain so good) is Zapdos. Even without any boosting item or nature, Zapdos has really nice 125 satk and is firing off incredibly high base power moves in Thunder, Hurricane, and STAB weather ball. Add in the additional effects with high trigger rates, and Zapdos can be extremely difficult to switch into. In the game Zapdos absolutely popped off, and I think this is where people started to really respect how powerful it is. My team was originally built in the Urshifu meta, and had Shifu > Craw and Skewda instead of Kingdra. I was also using lum SD OR chomp for its ability to reliably abuse pex and absolutely blast a lot of typical responses (Zapdos and Lando being some big ones) and really break things open for Shifu and Skewda. The EV spread tanks CB Wicked Blow and is a remnant of that time. I decided to keep that set, and replace Shifu with Craw despite it not being an actual ghost resist due to its amazing breaking synergy with Zapdos. After with talking with Eeveeto I decided to go for Kingdra as my swimmer and I've definitely not looked back. Kingdra has significantly better bulk and typing, which can often interchange with Skewdas insane speeed for checking certain offensive threats. It also doesn't take passive damage from its most spammable moves. The only downside is that Flip Turning generally involves some sort of prediction, but its really not hard to pull off and you can often Surf into switch to be safe anyway. Aside from the obvious peli (which I chose to run Hurricane on to put more pressure on Rillaboom among other things), ferrothorn is the last quintessential mon for rain in my opinion. My team is extremely offensive, so I chose to go with Chople Berry to be better at checking/trading with certain things, and Gyro ball as my coverage move to hit fairies, dragons, and fliers for maximum damage (was especially important when gear was still around). Personally I think if you can fit leech on ferrothorn you should always have it, as it can force significantly more telegraphed plays from the opponent and is a total pain in the ass to deal with for a lot of foggers. Ferro is easily one of the best mons in the tier and especially good on rain.
This team is extremely aggressive and is weak to a few things. Some of the biggest weaknesses are in Kyurem, CM Clef, and Hydreigon, and of course, you must always be careful of SD Chomp as well. When Pietro used this team a lot of these Pokemon were not as common (particularly Kyurem) and all were reasonably outplayable, so I didn't really consider these a problem. However, after the ace and gear bans, I wouldn't recommend using this team unless you're sure you won't face a kyurem. You could consider higher PP options on ferro, TWave, and Scale Shot chomp among other things, but I don't think they necessarily help that much and I think the movesets are already optimized for every other matchup. I actually really like Talah's rendition of rain with Unaware HWish clef. As much as I hate Unaware clef and think it is garbage, I do like the utility of TW HWish and think it can serve a valuable role on rain, especially freeing up options for ferrothorn. However,
DO NOT USE MODEST ZAPDOS. Ugh. It disgusts me. Don't ruin this pokemon. Zapdos' speed tier is incredible, especially with how dangerous Kyurem and Lele are, and it has plenty of power as is. Use timid, Max max. No need to get fancy. As for the swimmer, I still think Kingdra is better but I can see the reason for Skewda without having a Craw. I really prefer the breaking power of my rendition with Craw + Kingdra + Zap but with the changes in the meta, concessions must be made. I think some factors just chalk up to personal preference, but Zapdos is what really makes rain shine atm.
Gonna keep the game review short as I didn't play this one. Some early misplays around the Nidoking, I really like leading Chomp vs a lot of teams and would have vs Eo's. It was all for the flex though as Pietro lands a critical Thunder para on scarf magearna, setting the stage for Zapdos to sweep. Eo's Ace ends up not having Gunk, which essentially ends the game as Zapdos claims 6. I told Pietro for the game that one of Zap or Daunt would 6-0, and Zapper really took that literally. Nice game and a good showcase of why you gotta respect Zap in the builder.
Week 8: Double Bug HO vs Garay
(importable) (replay) (bonus replay) (extra bonus replay)
This is easily one of my most favorite teams from this season. Everyone knows me, I always love myself a little bit of HO. This team continues a little bit of a streak of me using HO without hazards, and I want to talk a bit about why I do this sometimes. Obviously, heavy-duty-boots is one major component that significantly lessens the effectiveness of rocks. When I'm building an HO Team, my #1 consideration is how my sweepers will sequence to break for each other, and how they can force in Pokemon that another partner can take advantage of. Frequently, depending on my core selection of sweepers, this often means I will prioritize adding another breaker/sweeper in favor of a dedicated hazard leads. This really depends on how useful rocks are for achieving certain KOs, verses adding another corebreaker or sweeper. In WCoP, this translated to using a Nasty Plot mew instead of a suicide hazard lead, as it was a surprising and very dangerous core breaker that would rip open a lot of games for me, something much more important than some rocks and spikes. On my snake team however, rocks was crucial for some KOs with Azu among other things, and the opportunity cost was very little to fit it onto Rhyperior in this instance (in my OST, the opportunity cost was much higher and hence I dropped rocks in favor of corebreaking Hippo sands). In this case, I strongly valued increasing the quality of my Garchomp as a win-condition and breaker, as I felt rocks SD was trying for too much and would be far too innefective vs Corv among other things. Rocks is useful for certain KOs with Scizor, but I found it much more important for Chomp to take advantage of and break things with Fire Fang. Dropping rocks is not a decision I take lightly, and is something that I've found to only really be consistent on HO builds.
As for the build itself, I got the original idea from facing some Sash HO on the ladder. This is something that I haven't talked about yet, but I used the ladder A LOT during this tournament, much more than any other, and I really enjoyed it. It helped me maintain interest in the metagame, discover new ideas, and refine my teams. During the late stages of a serious tournament I take testing seriously and will often make myself play against worst-case matchups for the practice. I still did this occasionally (s/o
Raiza), but I definitely don't have the playing drive in me these days and casual laddering was a nice way to get comfortable with my teams. This guy I faced had some really crazy ideas like non-boots volc and double sash, but one thing I really did love was how annoying sash Weavile is. It is extremely effective at preventing rocks early game and can take advantage of so many Pokemon, that it is almost certain to put in some good damage or weaken a key defensive piece.
On this team I almost always lead Weavile, though I will sometimes consider leading Rillaboom or Volcarona, mostly just to position Weavile better. Because of the backline pressure of things like Lucha and Chomp and Rilla, a lot of teams can be very hard pressed to avoid sending something like Clefable. Weav will scare out some faster offensive stuff and begin the process of dismantling the opponent's team for sweeping. The other key mon I really wanted to use on HO was Scizor. This thing is is crazily dangerous, and I really love the max atk LO sets. On HO you can go all out with coverage, and I decided to opt for Psycho Cut + Superpower. This gives me a lot of consistent damage and power as well as a non-contact option, though Knock Off + Sand Tomb is also very fair if you're not afraid of missing / don't want to bluff knock vs Slowbros. Magnezone is not an answer, and a lot of Heatrans will also be slower. More often than not though, with the right mon down or crippled, +2 LO BP is going to absolutely rip through your opponents team. Scizor is definitely one pokemon that really appreciates hazards, as the chip can help pick up KOs on Rillaboom and Chomp, or even pdef pex if you have spikes up too. I was toying with a Mew + Sciz + DD Pult HO, and I think this is also another cool avenue to explore as Sciz becomes even stronger. After this I mostly just started putting on some of the most robust sweepers that fit well and checked dangerous threats, like SD Rilla, Lucha, and Garchomp. I decided to fill the team with Volcarona due to the immense utility of Flame Body, sweeping synergy, and just the raw scare factor, which can often force opponents to play differently.
Some notes about the sets, Hawlucha is EV'd to live MBlast from Clef after rocks more often than not, which is very key to pressuring unaware variants via taunt. Volc is also psychic-less due to the rest of the team's ability to take advantage of Pex (especially with taunt lucha), and Giga Flame lets it perform better vs stuff like Gastro/Fini and also consistently breaks Una clef 1v1 due to the PP stall and recovery, even if Volc is paralyzed. With so many set-up sweepers, this can be very important vs such teams. Another note about playing this team vs Unaware is you should be willing to sacrifice something like Weavile for even just 35% on Clef, just so you can effectively use Swords Dance to punish the opponent. Once you remove the opponent's option to safely hard to Clef, every play you can make has much stronger leverage and really puts the opponent in a tough spot. Also, I definitely think the some of the movesets (Hawlucha, Volc, Sciz) are customizable for your match (for example, PJab Lucha often destroys koko teams, Psychic Volc is good vs pult/pex and no una clef / gastro / fini, Knock Tomb Sciz is better vs Slowbro, etc.) but these all have downsides, and I do think the movesets I have selected are the most consistent overall. If you change one, definitly try to adjust the others to match the resulting shift in dynamics.
Onto the game review - I will cover many more turns for this one, as every single one is crucial. This matchup looked pretty tough, as Volcarona + Specs Pult is quite annoying for me to sustain hits from and he's got several ways to isolate and individually check my sweepers. Volc can cover Rillaboom, Rotom / Clef + Sciz can cover Hawlucha, Sciz can cover Weavile, Rotom/Volc can cover Sciz, Pult covers Volc, and Lando covers Chomp. My first thought was that I wanted to get Volcarona in as much as possible, preferably with Grassy Terrain up, to pressure the dragapult and potentially set-up for a later sweep. I lead Weavile as usual to threaten out the Dragapult, and the early turns involve much of me trying to get flame body burns and land as many attacks with Volc as I can. On turn 5 Garay switches Lando into my Volcarona and takes 35%, revealing he is specially defensive. This threw me off quite hard and makes it rather unlikely Volcarona will sweep. It was at this point in the game that I knew my plan would be to weaken the Clefable (probably with Hawlucha) and then sweep with Garchomp. My biggest concern at this point was if I could prevent the Rotom from tanking my Hawlucha instead, but I realized that if I weakened Volcarona, then Garay wouldn't be able to afford this as then Scizor would probably sweep. This means I need to get some damage in with Rillaboom if I can, then set-up with Hawlucha.
I finally get my Rillaboom in. Garay chooses to EQ on this turn, and had he used rocks, moonblast becomes a roll to KO my Hawlucha spread (favorable for me but not by that much). It also means Weavile is dead, though its mostly sack fodder for me at this point anyway. This turn is the start of a critical juncture, where I must hold onto my momentum every turn to maximize progress. If I click Knock Off on a hard switch to Volcarona, this is huge for enabling my Hawlucha and Scizor as wincons. However, Knock on a Scizor swap would drain all my momentum. I choose to SD here as Garay goes Scizor. This brings another key turn, and what I feel is my one mistake of the game. In this situation Garay could stay in to U-Turn, or hard switch Pult predicting Superpower. When I had brought Rillaboom in on Landorus, my plan had always been to Knock off the Scizor instead of Superpowering, but in the heat of the moment I became a bit too "safe" and Superpowered a Pult switch. I think Knock Off was always better for a few reasons. One is that it is likely to succeed, as if Garay loses Sciz then he is in serious danger of being swept by Hawlucha. More importantly however, Knock Off gives me guaranteed damage, and I also live a U-Turn, so I don't lose that much from getting the play wrong. I was running damage calculations for Hawlucha on these few turns, and I'm not sure why but something in me decided I needed to clean KO the Scizor. I'm not sure why, but I definitely regretted this play. As is the nature of HO, it has a high skill cap but also must be played precisely in a difficult mu. This is a huge momentum drain, but I decide to sack my Weavile here. By forcing the draco this allows me to set-up with Hawlucha. Furthermore, the damage on Pult makes my Volcarona much more threatening (even though he has SDef Lando), which incentivizes Garay to maintain health on his Rotom. On preview I did not expect this Clefable to be Unaware, and I breathe a sigh of relief as I deal >80% with Acro and tank a moonblast to knock it out.
After fishing for another Flame Body, I decide to let my Volc get Paralyzed in order to weaken Garay's Rotom and get a safe switch back into Rillaboom. Garay shows he is Timid Rotom with a gutsy Volt, and I decide to trade my Rilla for damage on Pult. At this point my only way to force it out is with Scizor, so I have to put it in BP range. I go for a hard SD since I cannot afford to let the Volcarona Quiver Dance, especially as I need my Garchomp to use it to get an SD. This ends up working out with my Hawlucha sack, and Garay chooses to go Lando and EQ. I think had he made an aggressive hard switch to Dragapult, I definitely would have lost this game. After going Lando, my odds become much better, regardless of EQ/Tox, and this is only improved when I land the 3-hit scale to KO at +3. Lefties recovery is key here to keep me out of range of BP with defense drops, and a 3-hit on Rotom ends the game immediately, but unfortunately I miss as Garay lands a Hydro. This is still something I can afford however, and I manage to land the three hits to KO rotom on the next turn as well. At this point my out is a Flame Body burn, and finally on the 3rd opportunity I land it. I click setup moves with Volc and Sciz to prevent Garay's Volc from QD'ing, and land the final scale shot I need to close out the game. Really tight one that I thought I had lost till the very end. I think Knock Scizor would have beaten Fangless chomp, but as Garay just u-turned, two EQs would have closed it at the end.
Week 9: Blissey + Zone Offense vs 1TL
(importable) (replay) (bonus replay)
This team is definitely my spiciest and probably hardest to play well with. I am really big on CM Lefties Lele, and this was my stab at making a team with it. I originally suggested that set for Ajna's week 8 game and made this team for him to try, but he understandably found it tough to play and made another great rendition of Lele Bliss (that you should definitely post
Ajna!). I found this team really fun to play for myself and was enjoying it a lot, so I decided to bring it vs the sharkies before the week had even started.
CM Lele is a very dangerous breaker due to its ability to boost and also switch up moves, but leftovers is really what makes the set click in my opinion. The passive recovery allows you to abuse defensive mons (especially stuff like Slowking) much more effectively, and often allows Lele to stay healthy enough to outtank the speediest mons on the oppos team and roll right through. Especially if it's something like Koko, Pult, Torn, etc. the CM boosts will also make a massive difference. I wanted to pair Lele with Blissey due to the coverage vs Pult and Kyurem, and to teleport into things like Pex, but one of the annoyances I was facing was dealing with mons subbing on Bliss, especially Pult (kyurem I could TP into lele or Zone depending on set if I wanted to be proactive, or just stall it). Enter Scarf Icicle Spear Mamoswine. I honestly put this set on as a joke at first, but it's actually incredibly good. Scarf mamo can threaten a lot of the tier, and Superpower gives it coverage to revenge things like Weavile. The set is very unpredictable so you can often bluff Ice Shard or non-choice early on, or pick up surprise KOs on something like a Koko u-turning out. At this point I put on DNite + Zone to patch up a lot of defensive holes and make my offensive synergy really shiny. Dnite can frequently bluff EQ, scaring out Taunt Heatran long enough to build an advantageous position, and just checks a whole lot of shit with its impressive bulk and multiscale. Zone traps many steels for all my breakers, and I decided to go with an incredibly bulky spread to reliably answer some more dangerous offensive ones like Bisharp and Kartana. One of the biggest dangers to this team on face value is strong knock off users, and Zone is the dedicated answer to those. With my spread I can tank +2 Low Kick from Weavile, sucessive CB Knocks from Bish, and from Kartana I can tank Knock into itemless knock into +2 Itemless knock to KO with BPress (which by extension, tanks +1 Knock into +1 vs +2 Itemless Knock). It's also bulky enough to tank a +2 bpress from speedy skarmorys, though most of these calcs rely on taking minimal chip damage beforehand. After running endless hours of calcs I finally emerged victorious, beads of sweat dripping from my forehead as I basked in the glory of my optimized zone spread, only to discover
Ox the Fox had already made the same spread. Well. Apart from trapping, he also covers me vs icicle kyurem and other random physical attackers. Playing zone as a really defensive piece really helped me find more flexibility with him. To ease some of the pressure on zone I made my dragonite very bulky, with enough to tank two CB Smart Strikes from kart, Speed to outrun Latis at +1 (and pult/zera/the whole schabang at +2, the number of DDs you should aim for at minimum), and the Atk to pick up KOs at those ranges. As much as I really think EQ is valuable, Heal Bell is very tough to give up when it gives Lele and Kartana significantly more flexibility, and can also help DNite sit in on and sweep through things like Tox Lando and TW Bliss.
Finally at last, I needed something to pressure CM Clefable, Check +1 Sub DD Pult, pressure steels/defensive cores and remove shed shells, add some speed and power, etc. Band Kart was the perfect choice here, and I decided to compress even further by dropping Sacred for Defog. With this Kart could also act as a secondary emergency Knock Switch / fodder piece. Kartana is often the best early game breaker and will pave the road for DNite / Mamo in some way. It is also one of the key sources of pressure vs passive Unaware Clef team. Going back to the start of this team, one of the key choices in how to play this team is the debate of Psychic vs Psyshock on Lele. Psyshock hits Blissey and G-Slowking much harder, but Psychic is much more dangerous to Unaware Clef and Pex, as well as practically everything else. I decided to use Psyshock for my match, and recommended Luigi to use Psychic in his OST game, and I think both have their merits and it is very hard to pick one. This largely depends on the MU you expect to face. I also think Psychic is a fair choice (albeit worse imo) simply for how it simplifies game-planning, even if it might increase reliance on prediction, vs some teams you will have endless opportunity to call it right thanks to Blissey. Speakig of the evil blob, the idea of compressing rocks on Mamo and running TWave + Port is central to how this team plays. Blissey is extremely tanky, and with natural cure and port you almost always want to use it as a sponge for safe entry of your breakers, especially vs passive teams. For example, to protect Lele's lefties you would almost always want to go Blissey on Pex and port. TWave is very good at punishing a lot of switch-ins and punishing slow responses, and I decided to go with Ice Beam as my attacking move. This was mainly because of how threatening SD + Scale Shot chomp is to my team. IBeam makes me significantly less of a liability vs Chomp, and I can actually tank a +2 EQ from full and win a straight 1v1 if I need to. This is rather dangerous though, and it is best to leave Bliss as an emergency check or pull an Ice Shard bluff / deny chomp free set-up altogether. Most frequently you will make a trap with Zone and then play correctly around chomp once, and then it should be manageable. It also dents Lando and hits Pult's sub, which can be very convenient.
This team frequently plays on a lot of set bluffs and surprise factor in certain mus, and is definitely more geared to being a 1-game team for a tour like SPL. That being said its incredibly fun to play and still very strong, so I recommend trying it out and potentially shuffling sets like EQ DNite / Specs Lele to keep your oppo guessing. Fun story, BIHI accidentally brought this team to stour before I had even used it not realizing it was my team for the week, and to protect the set knowledge he bluffed EQ Nite so aggressively his opponent forfeited without even checking. Just goes to show you how important information can be in a game of mons.
Onto the game review. My MU looked pretty good, with Kart + Mamo + Zone as a major threat, and DDNite as the probable game finisher once corv was removed. My biggest concern was the opposing lele due to my difficulty of switching into it, and the opposing Garchomp in case it happened to be an offensive variant with Scale Shot, rather than a tanky rocker. My first 4 turns were incredibly good, I lead Kart as I can often bluff scarf and get off some really strong early hits, and this managed to allow me to remove Corv very early.
Here is where I made a few misplays in the game that cost me a lot of flexibility and momentum. Seeing as how my zone was not so useful any more and a potential liability to Chomp, I decided to throw it in here instead of possibly eating a specs psyshock on blissey. However, I think this was a key error for two reasons. Not only did this play remove my ability to glean information about 1TL's Lele if he focus blasted me, which he did, but also it was very predictable. The next turn I got Scarf-Lele PTSD (check out my game vs Sacri'), and decided to go to my Lele instead of my Kartana. I absolutely wanted to go Kart here as Smart Strike/Leaf Blade was completely free vs Specs and was key to my gameplan as I wanted to weaken his chomp and get more info about its set for my DNite. Lele was absolutely a misplay, but I think had I played smarter the previous turn this could have been easily avoided. Also taking a specs psyshock on Blissey wasn't even terrible, as I could still preserve for Specs Pult, heal on opposing Blissey, or maintain a sack without desperately needing to keep him around. CM was furthermore a greedy move by me, I wanted to maximize damage on blissey or incentivize CB Rilla to Glide. However, Psyshock damage was enough to put Bliss in range of DNite and Rilla was always the best option anyway, as I forgot 1TL must also respect specs Lele from me as well. At this point I should've comitted to calling U-Turn which was definitely the safer option for 1TL, but it doesn't make much progress for me anyway. I end up taking some extra chip on Kart and lose the speedtie vs Lele, meaning I don't get any damage for my mamoswine and end up in the same situation with Kart down to 30, all for the information that Lele was indeed specs. Yikes, definitely a misjudgement by me.
Even so, however, I still felt rather confident of my chances to take this game. I played in this way to be ultra safe with my Kartana, which was able to trade for Garchomp, paving the way for DNite to sweep. Still, I would've ideally maintained more sacks and health on my mons, allowing me to lean into Mamo + Kart as a win condition more strongly and risk the least with dnite. I knew that Blissey into DNite would be able to always force a situation where my DNite could DD twice, and I expected 1TL to have twave blissey, so I played to make Heal Bell less obvious and to force my set-up on Lele or Rillaboom. The only way for 1TL to avoid this was attempting to PP Stall my Blissey, which would have opened other possibilities for me and was generally not worth it. I missed a chance to paralyze 1TL's Lele to a FP, but still got the scenario I wanted where I could get two DD's with DNite with multiscale still up. I decide to roost on the Lele switch out in case he decided to crit-fish, and DD on the anticipated TWave from Blissey.
This endgame is very tricky. At this point, 1TL doesn't know for sure I have Heal Bell but also must consider it. My nite has enough atk to ohko Pult, and enough speed to outrun if I am not paralyzed (I need 5 DDs to outrun with Para, and also guaranteed ohko bliss). With my multiscale intact I can also take any one hit. This puts things in my favor, but full para's will always be the game decider. I only need to be able to get one attack off here, and DD on this turn knowing 1TL will stoss to break my multi. I get paralyzed, but this is fine as I know teleport is coming next turn and if I heal bell, this allows me to pick up a KO and another DD on the Blissey return. At this point its clear why I should've played more aggressively in the midgame to get prior damage on this blissey or pick up more prior KOs, to minimize the amount of turns 1TL has for a double para. Had I gotten off my DD + Heal Bell here, I would've been able to land a KO and reach +4 vs blissey, making heal bell into non-twave / miss an instant game ender. That situation is still tricky, but it ends up not mattering as I get fully paralyzed for a second turn on the teleport, ending the game. Definitely a tough way to go out, but such is the game, and I think is rather fair considering I also needed to hit 3 DWBs. I don't think the odds were much better than 50-50 at this point. Had I played sharper in the middlegame I probably have an upwards of 80% chance to sweep and might not have even need to. Definitely wasn't happy with how I played this one but props to 1TL for playing a solid game.
Tldr; Garchomp is epic. If you give me a like I will feel better about writing a dissertation on Pokemon teams instead of going outside. Thanks for reading!